Your business provides products or services that are important to its customers. As a viable entity the business provides investors, owners, management and employees an income and is vital to the financial well being of those involved. Every business is part of a commercial ecosystem and a micro economy in itself. In an effort to compete and stay viable why do so many business owners ignore the need for good information technology and security practices?

Admittedly for most it’s not a great topic of discussion. Information security and information technology in general is considered by most individuals too complex, too foreign, and best left to computer geeks to sort out. Well if you are in a position of responsibility within your organization you might agree, but it would be a dereliction of your duties not to be involved in defining overall technology objectives while reviewing outcomes ongoing.

Why? The operation of business today depends on information technology and information security. There may be some companies out there that still get by with pens and paper but they are very few. Most business relies on email, the web, databases, online banking, and perhaps some computer automation. A breakdown or breach of IT systems can be very disruptive and costly. Ever contacted a business to order something when their systems were down? How well did they meet your needs?

Most small business owners ignore the importance of information technology in their business planning. This leaves the company prone to inevitable breaches, outages, and data losses. Too often simple maintenance and upgrades are ignored for extended periods of time and ultimately the lack of oversight backfires. We have seen businesses shut down by outages.

By the time a crisis occurs all the perceived money saved is long spent in lost productivity and potential reputational harm to the business. You might think you can hide the weaknesses from your customers but they know through their ongoing service experience. Many times your employees will tell your customers of recurring problems before they tell you.

Building and maintaining pragmatic IT solutions is the most cost effective and efficient way to operate. That’s not always easy to do as the latest technology is like a drug to some staff, and the vendor supplying it wants to move as much of the latest greatest as possible. Your involvement and the use of outside consulting are critical in developing, and maintaining your best interests.

Business objectives should be clearly defined with an IT plan supporting each objective in plain English. There is no need for all the tech jargon. A simple question like how do we ensure data security should drive clearly defined objectives and an information technology roadmap that meets each point, which any layperson can understand. Keep it simple, stay involved, your business depends on it.

About Network Management Solutions

Since 1996 Network Management Solutions (NMS) has been helping companies best meet their business objectives with pragmatic solutions. Please contact us with your concerns we are here to help. Network Management Solutions can be reached at 908-232-0100 or by email at info@nmscorp.com. Further information can be found at our website, www.nmscorp.com

You are always on the lookout to fine-tune your business finances. Have you thought about how Information Technology (IT) fits in that picture? It’s likely you’ve made some significant investments in computers, servers, and networks, but perhaps at the time you didn’t consider it an investment so much as a necessary expense. The fact is IT can and should make your business much better at what it does. Not only by providing a utility function, but also serving as a business enabler. Let’s focus, for instance, on what proper maintenance might do to provide a financial gain right now.

For starter, is scheduled maintenance really necessary for your IT? Absolutely! Consider your IT as analogous to your car. Most people don’t need the frustrating experience of a roadside breakdown to understand that high-tech equipment functions much better and more reliably with regular checking and attention. Just like your car, IT that is maintained will serve your needs better, last longer, and hold its value over time.

Not sure? Consider what a server failure or network outage cost your business in terms of lost opportunity, employee expense or otherwise. For some business owners there is an immediate and quantifiable number obtained.

Less tangibly, but very important to assess, is what does an IT slow-down cost? That’s a bit tougher to answer, but if your systems are non-productive, so are your employees and that is reflected in the business, including customer satisfaction.

An important final consideration in evaluating the protective benefits of scheduled IT maintenance should be the financial and even legal impacts of losing customer or project data due to a theft or crash. Properly maintained systems enable the business to do what it does best, deliver on the promise of your brand.

So, in summary, here are the business benefits that scheduled IT maintenance provides:

maximum up-time of your systems

reduction of unnecessary slow-downs

insurance that sensitive information is best protected from data theft

certainty that your business can recover systems and information in the event of a failure

Making sound technology investments and maintaining the IT infrastructure is clearly one of the smartest things you can do for the financial success of your business.